Guides, Phones, Web
How to Prevent Extra Rings using Google Voice as Voicemail
October 27, 2009 by Evan Wondrasek · 8 Comments
Now that Google Voice’s voicemail can be added to your existing phone number (giving you great features like searchable voicemail, free voice transcription, custom greetings, and email/SMS notification), you may have noticed that callers have to wait through way too many rings before your Google voicemail picks up the call.
Here’s how it plays out:
- Call initiated -
[ Phone rings 4-5 times ]
- Call forwarded to Google Voice -
[ Google Voice rings 2-3 additional times ]
- Google Voicemail takes the call -
That gives you a grand total of up to 8 rings, which is a long time to be waiting on the other line. Here’s a quick-and-easy solution to removing the extra rings from Google Voice:
Note: This guide is only for users who have replaced their voicemail with Google Voice. If you’re using Google Voice to forward calls to multiple numbers, this will mess that up.
Step 1: Log into Google Voice and click ‘Settings’ in the top right corner of the window.
Step 2: Click the ‘Edit’ button under your current cell phone number.
Step 3: Click ‘Show advanced settings’.
Step 4: Under Forwarding Options, select ‘Go straight to voicemail’. Click Save and repeat this process for any other phones you have in Google Voice.
From my testing, my phone now goes seamlessly to my Google voicemail without any extra rings in between. The nice part about this trick is that you’ll still be able to send/receive SMS to your phone (which would be lost if you simply removed the phone from the forwarding list).
Have any tricks for getting the most out of Google Voice? Share them in the comments!
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About the Author
Evan Wondrasek is the founding editor of Techerator and is currently studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of North Dakota. He enjoys web design, vanilla lattes, and all things tech.
I completed the advanced option and it works. The only problem now is that the call is forwarded to GV and is retrievable using the phones. However, there is not sms notification, no transcription, no gmail. It is as if the internet apps do not know that the voice mail was ever recorded. And, yes, I did activate the cell phone for Google voicemail and saved the settings.
One possible explanation might be that this is a T-Mobile phone and it is prepaid and somehow Google knows that, but I can't imagine how. It works well with my Google Voice number.
A second explanation might be that Google needs a day or so to implement. I will check back in a couple of days.
I would appreciate your views.
A real fan of GV
This started working for me instantly. Transcription works too.
When using my phone number does SMS work? I thought not.
Works for me. Could be the best ever answer, to an issue I thought was definitely not going to be fixable, I have found on a forum page.
thanks for this. works fine on verizon. decreased wait time by 1 ring.
many thanks for the tip!